Read this to a few friends, thanks everyone. Got crying today over A Christmas Memory when she talks about missing her father, but he is right there with here anyway. Reminded me of when Dad has come to the door of this house. Literary, when Ive been half awake. The Snow Angel My father, who dies on the longest night of the year, returns a month later, somehow fifty three years old, a wild-eyed charmer, to tell me that the dead aren’t worrying about the living, that each snowflake falling is a wish spoken before it hits the earth. I am half awake, I rub my eyes. He stamps the porch, begging for a decent cup of coffee, saying he has no rest for all those wishes, no sleep for all those mad-rushes to pull us safely to the curb. I am skeptical. I hand him his coffee: milk, no sugar. He has that sheepish grin, that wolf-sure twinkle. “Tell me you aren’t disappointed dad, show me how you know it’s all ok.” He guffaws his coffee. “I would sleep like the dead. Instead, I have dervish-toddlers, toothless men. Mostly I have you . Lighten up, they say, winter’s my busy season.” I blink, his cup is empty, I was about to make us tea. His shoes wait by his empty bed, Goodwill is coming next month. Each day I walk through a forest with somebody’s name carved on a tree. All winter, during long feathery nights, wishes swirl round the house, falling on the neighborhood, on the chimneys while we sleep.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 02:13:16 +0000
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